After Indoor Nationals DQs, USATF Recommends Rules Changes

Two 3000-meter races in February were sources of controversy.

Jordan Hasay, left, and Gabe Grunewald race during the 3000-meter run at the USA Indoor Track and Field Championships. Victor Sailer/PhotoRun

USA Track & Field should consider changing its rules for disqualifications and appeals in light of controversy in the women's and men's 3000-meter races at the 2014 Indoor National Championships in February, a USATF working group has recommended to the organization's board of directors. The board received the report Wednesday night, and it was made public Thursday afternoon.

The recommendations come more than four months after the meet was held in Albuquerque. The initial disqualification of women's winner Gabriele Grunewald for interfering with Jordan Hasay and the still-in-place disqualification of Andrew Bumbalough for interfering with Galen Rupp were widely criticized as being not in accordance with USATF's competition rules.

“What we have seen in this instance, as well as other competition-related controversies in recent years, is that our rules in some cases fail to address how to decide certain field-of-play issues, as well as who should decide them," USATF Chairman and President Stephanie Hightower said in a statement accompanying the report's release. "The group’s recommendations will provide the blueprint for eliminating the shortcomings of our current rules and processes to decrease the chances of similar situations happening in the future.”

Grunewald won her race with a strong kick during which she made contact with Hasay. An official raised a yellow flag, indicating that the referee should consider disqualification. The referee decided no interference had occured. Hasay's coach, Alberto Salazar, filed an appeal to have Grunewald disqualified. It was denied after the jury reviewed video of the race.

The initial video review consisted of viewing the race from different angles than what was seen during the public broadcast. The report states, "When the jury first viewed the various videos, they were not clear. For one thing, they were shown to the jury on what was described as a 'bed sheet' and not a high-definition video screen." The jury was located near a walkway to the warm-up area. They initially viewed the race videos projected from a laptop computer onto the bed sheet.

The jury subsequently viewed a better-quality video of the race, and disqualified Grunewald. The disqualification meant that Hasay, who finished fourth, would be eligible to be on the U.S. team for the world indoor championships. Two days later, Hasay withdrew from the world team, Salazar withdrew his appeal, and Grunewald was reinstated as winner.

In the men's 3000, Bumbalough led for much of the 15-lap race, with Rupp and Ryan Hill tucked in behind. With less than five laps to go, Hill made a move toward the front, and bumped Rupp, who went on to finish second to Bernard Lagat. An official raised a yellow flag, and the referee decided after a video review that a disqualification was warranted. The report states, "A meet official told Salazar that Bumbalough had interfered with Rupp. Salazar then filed a protest, identifying Bumbalough." However, the referee and Salazar mistakenly identified Bumbalough as the one who interfered with Rupp. Bumbalough's and Hill's coach, Jerry Schumacher, was unaware of the disqualification, and left the arena. When he learned of the disqualification, the time for filing an appeal had passed.

"The frustrating part is that it was clear on that evening that it was not Andrew Bumbalough, and now it's taken over three months to address the situation," Bumbalough's agent, Tom Ratcliffe, told Runner's World Newswire. "I don't understand why they couldn't say right away that they made a mistake."

Concerning the men's race, the report deals only with the errant disqualification of Bumbalough, which remains in the official results. It doesn't attempt to judge whether Hill should have been disqualified for interfering with Rupp.

The USATF working group was formed in April, and chaired by Bob Hersh, a USATF board member who is widely respected within the sport. The other four in the group – John Blackburn, Jon Drummond, Rose Monday and Darvis Patton – are members of various USATF boards or committees.

The group examined what happened during both 3000-meter races as well as the officiating decisions made during the meet and post-meet actions by USATF staff. In its report, the group says that USATF and International Association of Athletics Federations rules are vague about what constitutes interference and merits disqualification. The report also acknowledges that the initial video review of the women's race was conducted with sub-standard equipment and that people affiliated with Grunewald and Hasay directly interacted with the appeals jury while it deliberated.

Among the group's key recommendations:

USATF should consider amending its competition rules concerning what referees and juries should look at in making disqualification decisions.

USATF should consider its competitions rules to allow for correcting administrative errors, such as the Bumbalough disqualification, that are discovered after a meet.

Appeals juries should work in a separate room off the track to have privacy, and should have access to all available, high-quality video evidence.

Various USATF committees will consider whether to implement the working group's recommendations. The earliest that will occur is at the 2014 USATF annual meeting, scheduled for December 2-6 in Anaheim, California.

Grunewald's coach, Dennis Barker, told Newswire that he still thinks USATF rule 119.4 (c), which says that the appeals jury's decision is final unless "new conclusive evidence is presented," was violated in Albuquerque. Barker said the higher-quality video used to initially disqualify Grunewald wasn't available to the jury until it had already decided to allow an additional appeal. This contrasts with the chronology presented in the USATF report.

"However, there may be some useful things to come out of the report," Barker told Newswire. "There does need to be clarification of what constitutes DQable contact during a race.

"Also, the first thing that should be done by meet officials after receiving a protest, is to contact the athlete, coach or agent the protest is against," Barker said. "It's ridiculous for an athlete and coach to return to their hotel after the meet not knowing that a protest had been filed, and then being told that the window of opportunity for filing an appeal had passed."

Ratcliffe agreed with Barker on the need for a better process of informing athletes about disqualifications.

"I think they should make sure that athletes are notified," Ratcliffe said. "The fact that the official came to Alberto Salazar and prompted him to file a protest, that doesn't seem right either. If the officials decided that the infraction was worthy of a disqualification, they should make the decision. So why is this official approaching Alberto Salazar telling him to file a protest?"

"I think they’ve come up with some really good recommendations," Don Kardong, a former committee chairman for TAC, the predecessor to USATF, told Newswire. "Principally, making sure the officials who are making judgments aren’t interfered with by athletes or representatives is huge.

"It’s certainly a very transparent report," said Kardong, who was fourth in the 1976 Olympic Marathon and served as an athlete representative to TAC. "I think that’s a great thing for the organization. Hopefully it’s a sign that this kind of controversy will be handled better."

The full USATF report is available here. The high-quality version of the women's 3000-meter race can be seen here. The men's 3000 can be viewed here.